Dick Platkin

Dick Platkin is a former Los Angeles city planner and veteran Planners Network member who reports on local planning issues for City Watch LA, which published an earlier version of this article. Please send any comments or corrections to rhplatkin@gmail.com.

Dick Platkin: If the climate initiatives championed by Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti and by Councilmember Paul Koretz are serious, and not just anti-Trump media campaigns, then these politicians need to become leading advocates for dipping deep into LA’s municipal budget to address climate change.

or decades, Los Angeles has suffered from out-of-scale, unwanted development that violates the city’s zoning code and adopted plans. Much of it is permitted by “spot zoning,” which exempts specific properties and projects from prevailing regulations. City residents have long been frustrated by what they see as the undue influence of developers whose campaign contributions […]

Dick Platkin: Mansionization eliminates affordable single-family neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The speculators target smaller, affordable houses and replace them with McMansions that are, on average, three times the size and price.

Dick Platkin: Mayor Garcetti’s pLAn, like Mayor Villaraigosa’s Green LA, is nothing more than an Executive action, without any formal, legislative component. It includes a plan-like document and a Mayoral directive to City Departments, along with a public relations outreach program.

The Middle East

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers: If more people in the US become aware of the truth about Israel’s genocidal policies, the economic lifeline and political protection of the United States will disappear.